In today’s final holiday gift suggestions blog, I’ll focus on our bread and butter, Super Heroes! Here are some great suggestions for a variety of heroic fans.
1) Shazam: the Golden Age of the World’s Mightiest Mortal
I first heard Chip Kidd talking about this book at this year’s C2E2 Convention in Chicago, and the slideshow he presented got me excited to see the finished product. Now that’s it’s in the store, it more than lives up to the hype. Kidd and collaborator Geoff Spear dig deep into the Captain Marvel vaults to give a pictorial history of the character’s merchandise through the years. Want to see stills from the various black and white Captain Marvel serials? They’re in here along with items featuring the largely forgotten Hoppy the Flying Marvel Bunny!
2) the Marvel Encyclopedia/the DC Encyclopedia
These are always popular gift suggestions. Do you have a friend or family member who is just getting into comics and wants to know everything about every character? These are great ideas for them, as well as longtime super hero fans who want the ultimate in source book material.
3) Wednesday Comics HC
One of the great books published in recent years, the deluxe Wednesday Comics HC collection features every strip from the 12 issue newsprint series along with a couple of unused strips and sketchbook material. All this and it’s all published in a glorious oversized format. Who wouldn’t want to see Ryan Sook‘s Kamandi or Karl Kerschl‘s Flash strip in a large bookshelf format?
4) The Simon and Kirby Superheroes/The Best of Simon and Kirby HC
Longtime Heroes friend Steve Saffel worked closely with the legendary Joe Simon to start bringing the many volumes of the Simon and Kirby archives back to the public. The Best of Simon and Kirby is a great overview of some of the legends classic works before they went on to create so many timeless characters for Marvel and DC. And The Simon and Kirby Superheroes reminds us just how relevant their early costumed heroes were for their time, and how influential they remain. These are great books by great people that any fan of comics history should want to include in their library.
5) 75 Years of DC Comics: the Art of Modern Mythmaking by Paul Levitz
If you haven’t seen this coffee-table sized opus from Paul Levitz, you’re in for a treat. If there’s any person qualified to do a complete examination of DC’s history it’s Levitz, and he more than delivers in what is one of the year’s great studies of comics history. At over 700 pages in length, this is the ultimate gift idea for any lifelong DC fan. It’s also large enough to be a hefty weapon, though we don’t encourage that kind of thinking during this or any other time of year.
6) Essentials, Showcases, and Archives!
As a young comic reader I always enjoyed receiving DC Archive editions of classic stories. While those are still available and ideal for fans of any age, both Marvel and DC have done a great job of continuing their Essential and Showcase lines which are very affordable reprints of renowned tales from past decades. If you know someone just getting into super hero comics that you’re interested in buying something for, this may be the best and most varied option.
7) Popular Modern Collections in TP and HC
Maybe you’re trying to buy something for something you know who likes comics but has gotten away from them in recent years. Why not think about getting a trade paperback of some of the most popular stories and crossovers? For the Marvel fan try Civil War, Siege, World War Hulk, X-men: Messiah Complex, X-men: Second Coming, for DC fans try Blackest Night and it’s related crossover collections, Green Lantern: Rebirth, Identity Crisis, Brightest Day, or any of the great Grant Morrison Batman collections.